


Enkindle

by Stairre



Series: Resonance [1]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: A world-rending war is the backdrop guys, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Desertion, Don't copy to another site, Fluff and Angst, Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Prostitution, Implied/Referenced War Crimes, M/M, There are no good guys in war, with all accompanying implications
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:22:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25449781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stairre/pseuds/Stairre
Summary: Hot Rod's got a spark-mate out there somewhere. And they're probably a Decepticon. It doesn't stop him from wanting to meet them.Deadlock's got a spark-mate out there somewhere. He's been searching for them for quite a while.---The first instalment of my Hotlock Soulmate AU. Please be assured that while the backdrop is canonically angsty, Idopromise fluff and happy endings for these two. However, please also heed thethere are no good guys in wartag because I really do mean it. No black and white morality here, folks.
Relationships: Drift | Deadlock/Hot Rod
Series: Resonance [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1843339
Comments: 25
Kudos: 110





	Enkindle

**  
Resonance  
  
  
**

**Enkindle  
  
  
**

**–  
  
  
**

Hot Rod’s spark-mate is older than he is, he knows.  
  


When he first woke up, staring up at the stars as he stood on the field where the Nyonic hot spot was still spitting out sparks, he felt their shocked response to his overwhelmed wonder at suddenly coming into being. The air was warm, he recalls, hazy with the heat of the hot spot as the soft metal under his pedes was turned molten from underneath, and lifted up to curl around the roaming sparks still forming their frames.   
  


Warmth below him, the spread of the stars above him, and the shocked happiness unfurling in his spark chamber as his spark-mate celebrated his awakening alongside him – those were Hot Rod’s first memories.  
  


It was a good way to awaken into life. Pity that its beauty did not exactly last.  
  
  


–  
  
  


Hot Rod’s a light-weight racer frame, barely taller than a minibot and not nearly as stocky. In the pop-up citizen registration office just on the edge of the hot spot, he gets assigned to be what they obliquely call an _entertainer_.  


Nyon has several racing tracks and stadiums, a lot of them straddling the line between legal and shady. Hot Rod races in the tournaments, dances in the bars, and chats up the higher caste attendees, exactly as he was taught. Sleek and bright and pretty is his frame type, with a diminutive stature far less inclined to intimidate any clients the way heavier-weight racer frames do. The same powerful engine and high-performance internal mechanics get overlooked when you barely come up to some mech’s chest.  
  


It’s gruelling work. He doesn’t get paid if he doesn’t deliver, and Hot Rod becomes very aware, very quickly, that he’s nothing more than a show-piece to a lot of mecha. He’s there to look pretty, act ditzy, not to think or have intelligence, or Primus-forbid _contribute to conversation_. Hot Rod swiftly grows to dislike the lot handed down to him.   
  


His one comfort is his spark-mate. During the initial medical exam after he first woke up, his spark was scanned for his records, and he was noted as having an unfulfilled spark-bond lingering in his corona. The medic there informed him that spark-mates were rather rare – about one in every three thousand – but not to worry, as it won’t affect his health in any way with the bond unfulfilled. Only with a fulfilled bond would death take them together.  
  


Hot Rod cannot deny his own want for the other half of his spark. Maybe he doesn’t have the shanix right now to go out looking for them, but Primus how he _wants to_. There’s a _promise_ there, of someone who will understand him better than anyone else in the universe. Who _wouldn’t_ want that?  
  


His other half is not a happy mech, either. They often feel that vague background sadness that comes with living in a bad situation you can’t do anything about – just like Hot Rod – but they do try to cheer each other up when it gets too oppressive. Hot Rod’s often felt comfort being sent down the unfulfilled bond whenever he’s feeling particularly low, and he always returns the favour when his mate gets too upset.  
  


Hot Rod longs for the day that they meet, the day that their first touch will glow bright and mark them both, and their bond will snap fully into being, capable of more than just communicating emotional states. Holo-novels are _full_ of spark-mates, and Hot Rod _does_ know better than to take them at their word, but he still can’t help but _fantasise_.   
  


It’s not much, but for now it has to be enough.  
  
  


–  
  
  


The day that a client plugs a circuit booster into him as they take him to berth is the day that Hot Rod realises just _what_ that floaty feeling he often gets from his spark-mate is.  
  


The horrible part is that Hot Rod _understands._ The client is putting their hands on him, putting their mouth on him, and damn it, Hot Rod just wants enough shanix to buy his next energon cube. The world around them goes smudgy at the edges, the sensation of whoring himself out fading into something almost vaguely acceptable. There’s more pleasure this way, when he’s less present in his head to be bitter about what he has to do to live.  
  


Later, when the feeling fades and the craving starts, his spark-mate sends over nothing but compassionate understanding; true empathy for what they’re both going through. No judgement, no hesitation.  
  


Hot Rod’s not ashamed to admit he cries a bit at that unconditional acceptance.  
  
  


–  
  
  


After a handful of centuries of life, Hot Rod joins Nyon’s underground resistance movement.  
  


His spark spins wild with something like anger and fear and the overwhelming sense that he’s finally doing something _right._ After an entire young life of nothing but the feeling of being slowly crushed by a machine, by a system, far larger and more powerful than he is, it feels exhilarating to finally be _doing something.  
  
_

His spark-mate sends over concerned curiosity, but Hot Rod sends back comfort, and the righteousness that has come and filled him up. That sense of determination now spurred beyond wishful thinking and finally put to action.  
  


His spark-mate fears for him, and Hot Rod pulses back understanding of that, too. But he won’t be swayed away from doing his part.  
  


His part is mostly information gathering, and some light smuggling. Entertainers are always around on the streets, on the prowl for new clients, showing off their flashy paint jobs and bright smiles. No one looks twice at Hot Rod coming and going, and the resistance takes advantage of that to move messages around their various cells. The enforcers can’t hack what’s on flimsi, after all.  
  
  


–  
  
  


Hot Rod kills a mech for the first time around a vorn into his career as an insurgent.   
  


It’s not an enforcer, thankfully, as the resistance tries their best to avoid killing those. The fallout would just not be worth it, even though some of Nyon’s enforcers are absolute total _scum_ who would completely deserve it. No, it’s some gang thug, certain that the entertainer who just passed on some information to his boss isn’t in a position to decline his advances.  
  


Hot Rod tries to de-escalate first – he’s actually not _that_ bad at it, considering that managing unruly clients is kinda part of his day job – but then the mech pulls out a blaster and tries to force the issue, and, well…   
  


The gang’s boss waves it all off. “If he can’t respect that no means no then he shoulda signed up as an enforcer, not a smuggler,” he says to Hot Rod. “Tell your bosses no harm done, an’ that I’ll be clearin’ house a little. I ain’t gonna put up with that kinda attitude from mecha I should be able to trust to get a job done.”  
  


Hot Rod says _thanks_ somewhat blankly, and leaves as fast as he can.  
  


 _It was self-defence,_ he tells himself, but the fact that it’s the truth doesn’t make it any easier to swallow. He’d been told that nothing could prepare you for taking a life, but the bleak reality of it still presses down on him hard. He wonders if there’s a cleaning drone wiping up the pool of half-processed energon he’d purged up back at the gang base right now.   
  


His spark-mate is tugging for his attention, worried about the hollow horror that is taking root inside Hot Rod, but Hot Rod has no reassurance to give them.  
  
  


–  
  
  


Hot Rod feels a flood of terror when that familiar floating feeling drifting along the bond suddenly cuts off into total blankness.  
  


He tugs at the unfulfilled bond for _hours._ No response.   
  


Is his spark-mate dead? Unconscious? Was it an overdose? He doesn’t know, and he _hates_ not-knowing. It’s a hate he will cultivate in the next few million years.  
  


But for now, he only feels an immense surge of tear-filled relief when he gets a sensation of grogginess from his spark-mate.  
  


The worst has not come to pass. There’s still hope for an entwined future. Hot Rod’s fellow insurgents clap him on the shoulders as he curls up in his chair and sobs out _they’re awake, they’re okay.  
  
_

His spark-mate sends a feeling of sorrowful guilt his way, but Hot Rod can barely summon up anger. Maybe they meant to overdose, maybe they didn’t, but they’re still _alive_ and he can’t be anything but thankful for that.  
  
  


–  
  
  


Hot Rod’s chatting up a rich regular at the tracks when he feels the sudden immense wrath burning through his spark-mate, tinged heavily with furious grief. He stutters, falters, then paints a polite smile on his face and excuses himself from the conversation, shuffling the mech off to another racer.  
  


He leaves the room hastily, slipping out and down the hall to one of the private rooms that get rented out, locking the door behind him and pushing the button to display an _occupied_ sign on the outside. He sits down on the plush berth – the berths in these rooms are far nicer than anything in the actual living quarters – and nearly collapses under the weight of his spark-mate’s emotions.  
  


 _What’s going on?_ he wonders, but that bitter, angry sense of loss echoes through again, and Hot Rod _knows.  
  
_

 _Someone’s dead,_ he thinks. _Someone they cared a lot about.  
  
_

Tears are pricking Hot Rod’s optics, just from the overflow sent down the bond. There’s a terrible sense of wrathful righteousness, followed by a hollow horror that Hot Rod knows all too well.   
  


_They aren’t just dead, they were **killed,**_ Hot Rod knows it to be unassailable truth the moment he thinks the thought. _And my spark-mate got their revenge.  
  
_

Hot Rod huffs out a wheezing vent of a laugh. _Now we’re both killers.  
  
_

His spark-mate reaches out, blank with sudden understanding, and Hot Rod grasps back, filling himself with empathy as much as he can. _I know,_ he wants to convey. _I get it. I’m here.  
_  
  


–  
  
  


Soon enough, his spark-mate has their own moment of determination, that point where anger and fear meet in the middle to birth something truly dangerous.  
  


Hot Rod only sends his encouragement when his mate reaches for his judgement. They’re both in this together, now.  
  
  


–  
  
  


Cybertron slowly but inexorably slides towards war. Hot Rod can sense it on the horizon, restless with trepidation, the sense that time is running out.  
  


He’s certain, now, that his spark-mate is right in the middle of it. There’s whispers on the street of the angry undercurrent suddenly gaining a voice, murmurs of a mech named _Megatron_ , who’s getting more and more support by the day. The emotions from his mate begin to coincide rather neatly with news reports of government offices vandalised, riots whipping through the streets, the charged anger near ready to set aflame.  
  


Hot Rod’s uneasy. Not that he thinks Megatron is _wrong_ or anything, but – something’s not right. He’s always had good instincts, all his fellows tell him that, rely on it to help them, even, and…   
  


Something’s going to go wrong. He just _knows_ it. Megatron seems like the answer they’ve all been waiting for, the one who will lead the revolution to victory, and Hot Rod _wishes_ so desperately that he could _believe_ , but – but – _but something’s wrong_.   
  


He doesn’t know what. He doesn’t know where or when or _how._ But every primal instinct inside of him is _screaming_ to wait before he makes a decision. Some of his fellow insurgents are joining the Decepticons, and he _gets it,_ he does, but he still cannot shake that hesitance inside.  
  


It makes him fear for his spark-mate.  
  
  


–  
  
  


War erupts, finally, like a lit match falling onto desert-dry tinder. It engulfs Cybertron in its awful violence almost overnight.  
  


It’s not in Nyon, not yet. But Zeta Prime is _doing_ something, the resistance knows it, and Hot Rod’s got bigger, more immediate problems than a spark-mate he’s certain is out on the frontlines elsewhere.  
  


He sends comfort when he can, for hollowness and anger is becoming the new norm for his spark-mate, whose body count is now far higher than Hot Rod's. But he doesn't always have the time to, with things ramping up here in Nyon.  
  


His mate sends him back concern when he feels Hot Rod’s sick dread at finding the tanks full of innermost energon in the Acropolex. Hot Rod’s almost too numb to feel it.   
  
  


–  
  
  


Nyon burns.  
  


It’s Hot Rod’s fault.  
  


The intensity of the last few days – the aching need to be listened to, fury at his home and people being reduced down to _terrorists_ , the anxiousness of luring the Autobot enforcers into the Acropolex, the desperation of the attempted evacuation, the fear at seeing Zeta’s Omega Destructors on the horizon, and the moment it all came crashing down to: Hot Rod’s finger on the detonator…   
  


Hot Rod sits, numb, heedless of his spark-mate’s attempts to get his attention.  
  
  


–  
  
  


Hot Rod ends up joining the Autobots after a first-hand meeting with Megatron. He was _right,_ he mourns, grieving that lost hope. Megatron truly is a tyrant.  
  


Hot Rod doesn’t buy into the propaganda that the Autobots are the _good guys_. He can’t. He just wants all this violence to _stop.  
_

Can’t they see that the old world order has already been torn down? Can’t they just get over their differences and reach out their hands and begin anew? War is still spreading, but _it doesn’t have to_ , and it feels like Hot Rod’s the only one who can see it.  
  


There’s a beat of hopelessness thrumming through him, as he watches the world descend further into needless ruin. His spark-mate tries to bolster him up, but suddenly Hot Rod’s unsure if he wants to meet someone who’s still fighting.  
  


No, that’s unfair, because Hot Rod is still fighting too. What he means is, someone who still believes that the fighting is _necessary._ That it’s _right._   
  


It feels like a hideous betrayal to even think such a thing, but – the world’s all upside down right now anyway. What’s one more heresy?  
  
  


–  
  
  


Somehow, over two million years of endless war pass by.  
  


By now, Hot Rod’s hit his limit and flown straight past it. He’s _empty._ His hands commit atrocities, and his optics see – or carefully _don’t see_ – many more. The Autobots match the Decepticons battle for battle, weapon for weapon, horror for horror, until the whole war is just a long, slow, drawn-out attrition. _Death is coming. Eventually._   
  


Hot Rod’s long since blown straight past the point where he hesitated about his spark-mate, too. So what if they’re almost certainly a Decepticon? Ain’t nobody on either side _innocent,_ and Hot Rod’s dealt out enough death that’s technically _legal_ , and a fair bit that’s _not_ , to hold murder against his mate.  
  


Hot Rod’s a _Wrecker_ , now, and that means he does the Autobots’ _dirty work_. He sees more than most just how much energon has been spilt. Looked into the optics of Decepticons and, once the battle-lust has faded, seen only another Cybertronian, fighting for the tattered hope of a bright future.  
  


It’s enough to make anyone purge.  
  
  


–  
  
  


Hot Rod finally meets his spark-mate on some grinding battlefield in the middle of the Autobots’ Hiema System campaign.  
  


The battle’s winding down, both forces retreating away from the radiation left behind by the specialised bombs. Hot Rod can’t even tell which side brought them and let them off, there’s an equal chance for either, and he supposes that it doesn’t really matter by this point in the war.  
  


He’s on the edge of the main fighting zone, half of his right knee joint blown open by a stray grenade, and ducking around the corpses and a crashed ship to try and reach the Autobot rendezvous. His laser rifle is out of charges and his back-up pistol is half-spent, and his arm has a gaping gap in it steadily leaking energon, and he just _really wants to get back already.  
  
_

It’s not to be. A Decepticon emerges from the inside the shadows of the crashed ship, gun pointed directly at Hot Rod’s helm, and this is it, it has to be. Hot Rod’s not going to move out of the way fast enough, and his pistol sure ain’t gonna be in position in time to save him with his arm wound slowing him down.  
  


He feels a lurch of detached victory from his spark-mate at the same time that he himself feels that unfolding certainty of something between fear and annoyed tiredness. _Is this it? Then just get on with it already!  
  
_

The Decepticon’s burning red optics go wide, and his hold jolts to the side, but the photon blast still hits the side of Hot Rod’s helm, and that’s the last thing he knows for quite a while.  
  
  


–  
  
  


Hot Rod wakes up. He… definitely wasn’t expecting to.  
  


Diagnostic reports scroll across his HUD and inform him that he’s been mostly-repaired. His fuel tanks are about half-full, which is actually more than he was sent out to battle with, and there’s a patch on his arm that’s only integrated 34%, but, y’know, there _is_ a patch, which is something.  
  


There’s the sensation of humming engines vibrating around him, so he’s on a ship. There’s some pipes making worrying clanking sounds somewhere to his left, but there’s not a single ship on the Hiema campaign that isn’t partially held together with prayer by this point, considering their distance from outposts with proper facilities to repair damaged vessels. Most crew members know a bit, but there’s only so much a bunch of half-battered soldiers can do in their spare time.  
  


He onlines his optics.  
  


The ceiling is purple, which is a big massive hint that this is not an Autobot ship. But Hot Rod isn’t chained, there are no stasis cuffs. His weapon systems _are_ locked offline, but that’s standard medical procedure…   
  


He turns his head to see the Decepticon he’s _sure_ would have been his death. Sitting by his berth side. Staring at him.  
  


Hot Rod resets his optics. When the visual feed remains the same, he croaks out, “So is purple standard interior décor for Decepticon ships, or are you just especially patriotic?”  
  


The Decepticon twitches in place. “… Standard, I’m afraid,” he says after a moment. “How’s your self-repair looking?”  
  


Hot Rod squints at him suspiciously. “Now why would you want to know that?”  
  


The Decepticon doesn’t answer. He just gestures to Hot Rod’s upper left arm.  
  


In trepidation, Hot Rod shifts to look.  
  


A bright white-gold handprint encloses around his limb, an unmistakeable sheen to it, unique to spark-mate first touches. Hot Rod’s intake closes as his memory files replay those last few seconds before he got knocked offline.  
  


Then he sits up – lurches, really, and not gracefully. He turns furious optics on the Decepticon. “Why would you do this?” he hisses.   
  


The Decepticon shutters his optics for a moment, but not for long, opening them again to stare at Hot Rod, like looking away would make Hot Rod disappear. “Touch me,” he says. “It’s true, I swear it. Touch me and mark me. _That_ cannot be faked.”  
  


Hot Rod hesitates a moment, seeking out any trap, but none becomes immediately apparent. He reaches out to clasp his hand to the Decepticon’s forearm, for a moment certain that nothing will happen, but –   
  


A bright, white-gold glow shines from underneath his palm, and there’s the sensation of something finally sliding into place inside his spark, with a deeply satisfying _schnik.  
  
_

Inside, wonder and trepidation bloom, and not all of it is his own. Hot Rod prods at it, plucking the fulfilled bond like a string on a musical instrument, and within the shivering resonance he gets back, he acquires the instinctual knowledge of just how far away his spark-mate is.  
  


It’s not far at all. They’re right under his palm, seated beside him, waiting for his judgement.  
  


Hot Rod opens his mouth, closes it, doesn’t know what to say. The Decepticon turns his arm, positioning his own hand beneath Hot Rod’s still outstretched one, and then grasps him carefully, digits sliding between Hot Rod’s own.  
  


 _I’m holding hands with a Decepticon,_ Hot Rod thinks hysterically, millions of years of war making the event seem utterly, momentously absurd. _I’m holding hands with my spark-mate.  
  
_

The Decepticon waits for Hot Rod to pull away – Hot Rod doesn’t – and then lifts their joined hold to his lips, kissing the back of Hot Rod’s hand. “I’ve been searching for you,” he says, “for – a long time. Waiting to find you.”  
  


Hot Rod swallows, suddenly a little guilty. “I’ve been waiting, too,” he says, quietly. “Wanting. But – perhaps I didn’t exactly take a proactive approach. It’s been – a wild couple million years.”  
  


The Decepticon warbles out a wet laugh. “I didn’t think you’d be an Autobot,” he says, like a confession. He glances at the white-gold handprint on his forearm, Hot Rod’s grip having shifted just a little, enough to show it partially.  
  


“I knew you were a Decepticon,” Hot Rod is forced to admit. “But, like, I’m way past the point of _we’re good, they’re evil._ I don’t think I ever thought that in the first place. But – and I’m sorry, ‘cause I suspect you’ve been a ‘Con from right near the start – I’m really not down with wholesale genocide. You guys have strayed _far_ off the path you began your walk on.”  
  


The Decepticon stills in place, then gently puts Hot Rod’s hand down. Hot Rod tenses, ready for – some sort of explosion, perhaps, but his spark-mate only remains quiet and still. A couple of moments of silence pass, and then he says, “I just want to win.”  
  


“Oh?”  
  


“The war,” his spark-mate says. “I want what I was promised; a society of equity and equality, of justice and peace. I want a place where I am open and free to love my spark-mate, without worry for finances, or work, or – or _what your alt dictates about you.”  
  
_

“Primus, don’t we all?” Hot Rod mumbles out when his mate pauses for a moment.  
  


His mate laughs again, defeated. “You have a point,” he says. “The Decepticons have strayed far, betrayed their own cause. By now, the Autobots are near where we were, at the start of the war. But I have sunk near an entire lifetime into our cause. How can I turn my back on it?”  
  


“Megatron ain’t the sole embodiment of the Decepticon cause,” Hot Rod says after it becomes clear that his mate is actually after an answer, and not just wondering out loud. “Also, can I say it kinda sucks that both the Autobot cause and the Decepticon cause are, on the surface, exactly the fragging same?”  
  


His mate snorts, bitter. “That’s true enough,” he acknowledges, “though the functionalist origins of the Autobot movement would need to be rooted out before any world order they create would fly by me.”  
  


Hot Rod nods in acquiescence. It’s not even a lie. As the Autobots were created as a reaction to the growing Decepticon movement, back before the war was really a _war;_ the creeping tendrils of the government’s functionalism are straight-up part-and-parcel of the Autobots’ foundational principles. Most of it’s fallen by the wayside now, but it would take true concentrated effort to fully divorce the Autobots from the functionalist principles they were initially built on.  
  


“Fine by me,” Hot Rod says. “Frag the Functionists, Down With Determinism, blah, blah, blah. But, like, I ain’t goin’ ‘Con. I can’t. You’re my fraggin’ spark-mate, but I ain’t going down that road. Not even for you.”  
  


“And I ain’t going ‘Bot,” replies his mate, “not even for you. Both sides have changed a lot compared to what they were founded on, but – I just can’t. I can’t become an _Autobot.”  
  
_

Silence falls on them. Hot Rod cycles in a vent, lets it circulate, ex-vents it. “Where are we, anyway?” he asks, finally.  
  


“Headin’ away from the Hiema System,” his mate tells him. “I’m hidin’ the ship in the Je’saar Nebula; the gases will confuse any scanners.”  
  


“Wait,” Hot Rod says, processor firing up and beginning to run simulations, “are we alone?”  
  


“Just the two of us,” his mate confirms, lips peeling back to show fangs as he smiles at Hot Rod, who shivers lightly. “It’s – I didn’t want to take any chances. Not with you. Not amongst _them.”  
  
_

Hot Rod squints at him. “Do they know you’ve gone AWOL?” he asks.  
  


His mate shakes his head. “I assume you’re probably down in Autobot records as MIA presumed KIA by now,” he answers, “and I didn’t exactly check in before I snuck us off the planet.”  
  


“… Are we deserters, now?” Hot Rod asks, because… that opens up a whole lot of opportunities.  
  


“We’re defecting to the Neutrals,” his mate corrects, then pauses. “Unless… you want to go back to the Autobots.” _Without me.  
  
_

Hot Rod swallows, thinks of all the things he’s done as a Wrecker, the orders that didn’t quite match up, and even of all the battlefields where the only crime committed was the fact that war itself was a crime. He thinks of the discrimination that permeates every level, of M.T.O.s made to die, despite the fact that he does have personal faith in Optimus Prime as someone who tries to disavow such treatment. Prime can’t be _everywhere.  
  
_

Hot Rod thinks of nearly three million years of loyal service, giving and giving and giving until he’s not got anything more left for them to take.  
  


“Frag yeah,” he says, and it’s the easiest decision he’s made for millennia. “Let’s just slaggin’ _go.”  
_  
  


–  
  
  


Hot Rod’s strained self-repair has him slipping back into recharge during the brief moment his mate leaves to adjust their ship’s course. When he wakes back up, his spark-mate is there again, sat in that uncomfortable-looking chair, and tilted to the side in a recharge of their own, their hand entwined with Hot Rod’s.  
  


As if they feel optics on them, Hot Rod’s mate wakes up, shoulders twitching, right hand half-transforming into a pulse cannon before clarity descends. Hot Rod’s not even bothered by the near-violent reaction. They’re all the same by this point, it’s nothing he hasn’t seen before. It would be strange, even, to have a different reaction to awakening.  
  


“Hey,” Hot Rod says, somewhat awkwardly, “so, like, now that we’re breaking our oaths and running off together to have some sort of lurid cross-faction romance, do I, like, get to know your name?”  
  


His mate blinks at him, red optics resetting, and then chokes out a laugh, fangs on full display in his grin. “Deadlock,” he replies, like that isn’t one of the most famous names currently out there, what the _slag_ has Hot Rod gotten himself into?   
  


“Ah,” Hot Rod says, lamely, he knows, but what else _can_ you say? “I’m Hot Rod.”  
  


“Hot Rod,” Deadlock repeats, trying out the name on his glossa. Hot Rod refuses to acknowledge his own sudden desire to have Deadlock say nothing but his name from here on out. “You… Nyon.”  
  


Hot Rod winces, old pain and grief and guilt flaring up in his spark. “Yeah… that was me.”  
  


Deadlock shutters his optics, and sorrow pulses from his spark to Hot Rod’s. “Sorry,” he says. “That’s – I want to say I can’t imagine how painful. But I felt it. We got word of Nyon later that day, and I knew you had to have been there, or nearby, but – I’m sorry. I won’t speak of it again.”  
  


Hot Rod just nods, stiffly. There are some things that – you just don’t talk about. “Forgiven,” he says. Then – “So. Deadlock.”  
  


Deadlock clicks his glossa. “Yep. I would say sorry again, but I’m not. I may be leaving them now, because they’ve gone so far astray, but I still believe in the original cause.”  
  


Hot Rod nods acceptingly after a moment of thought, a slideshow of all the Wreckers' greatest hits scrolling through his HUD for a brief moment. He has no room to point fingers and cast judgement around. “I understand. I was a Wrecker, y’know? I get it.”  
  


Deadlock looks him up and down. “Kinda small for a Wrecker,” he comments.  
  


Hot Rod scowls. “You should know better than anyone about underestimating what a racer can do,” he grumps, eyeing up Deadlock’s frame. His mate is the other type of racer; taller, more heavy-weight. Well, heavy-weight relative to his still-slim build. Light as a luna crystal flower compared to some of the guys roaming around.  
  


Deadlock grins at him, sly. “Oh, I’m not,” he purrs, rumbling his engine lowly. “Our frame-type’s _high-performance_ is _infamous.”  
  
_

Hot Rod flushes. “I’ve still only known you for a single _day,”_ he gets out, flustered. “Don’t push it.”   
  


Deadlock’s grin widens, but he leans back, giving Hot Rod his space. “A shame,” he says. “Like I said, I’ve been _waiting_ for you.”  
  


Hot Rod’s spark pulses with heat, and he cannot tell whether it is his own, Deadlock’s, or both of theirs. “Fraggin’ _really?”  
  
_

Deadlock nods, suddenly serious. “When I got out of the gutters,” he begins, “and became a mercenary instead of a buymech, I swore to myself that the only one who would ever touch me again would be my spark-mate. That was about three million years ago.”  
  


Hot Rod swallows, because, wow, what do you say to such a gesture of devotion? To someone you’re not guaranteed to ever actually meet? But – he has to know. “What if I don’t want to?” he asks. “Ever? What then?”  
  


“Then I won’t ever touch you,” Deadlock says, no doubt or hesitation in his voice. “You’re the most precious person I will ever lay my optics on. I would _never_ hurt you. I know that such promises are ridiculous to make, due to the sheer scope of what the universe could throw at us, but I can swear right here and right now that I will never intentionally or knowingly hurt you, physically, mentally, emotionally, sexually, financially, or in any other way you could think of. Even the thought is abhorrent to me.”  
  


Hot Rod kind of… makes a meaningless noise at being the recipient of such a vow. It’s not a squeak, it absolutely fragging _isn’t._ “I – um. Thank you? I like myself unhurt also. And… I do make the same vow. I’m not – I’ve waited so long for you. I’ve loved and raged and doubted and _longed_ for you… I don’t have anything to offer but what remains of myself. I’m sorry, it’s not much, but. I’m here now.”  
  


Deadlock grips Hot Rod’s hand, raises it up again to kiss it, then leans forward and places his lips upon Hot Rod’s, gentle and chaste. “You’re here now,” he repeats. “That’s enough. That’s more than enough.”

**Author's Note:**

> Me: I'm just gonna write some Hotlock smut, that'll be a nice way to get back into the swing of things after I had that bug that knocked me down for like ten days.
> 
> What came out: Not Fucking That, That's For Sure. Also, This Is Now A Series And You Can't Do Shit About It.
> 
> As a general note: Hot Rod's essentially a state-enforced courtesan from birth, and is understandably a bit bitter about it. The negative views presented in his narrative do _not_ reflect in any way upon IRL sex workers. Thank you. 
> 
> I can also be found on [tumblr.](https://stairre.tumblr.com/) Come and say hello!


End file.
